Kala: The Supreme Audit Office will build a new headquarters, the state should be 600 million

Prague - The Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ) will build its new headquarters, which is expected to cost around 600 million crowns and is to be completed in 2019. This was stated today by NKÚ President Miloslav Kala. The office is currently located in rented premises. The building is set to be constructed on a plot owned by the NKÚ in Prague-Holešovice at Ortenovo náměstí. The new headquarters will include an archive and library of the Chamber of Deputies.
    In the first two years, the office will not request funds from the state budget for the construction but will use unspent funds from previous years. It has more than 200 million crowns available.
    The budget committee of the Chamber today approved the basic data of the NKÚ budget for next year. The NKÚ will have 499.6 million crowns for expenditures next year. The committee acknowledged that it had failed to identify a suitable state-owned property in the territory of the Capital City of Prague, nor to purchase another suitable property for these purposes. It also noted that the office would build its new headquarters and, in this context, requested President Kala to designate spaces for the chamber's archive and library in collaboration with the chamber office. It simultaneously approved that the office's budget would be increased by funds necessary for the construction of the new headquarters between 2018 and 2020.
    The office is currently renting space in the Tokovo building in Prague-Holešovice. The previous government did not approve the purchase of a new building two years ago, with the NKÚ then considering the most advantageous property to be that of Sazka in Prague-Vysočany. Two years ago, the office signed a new lease agreement for the Tokovo rental, with the rent dropping to 16.7 million crowns per year. Before that, the NKÚ paid 450 million crowns for six years of renting the building.
    So far, the state has been unable to find a suitable building in Prague to offer the office. The NKÚ has received, among other offers, one from PPF Real Estate for the ArtGen building also in Prague 7. According to Kala, however, if a purchase were to happen, it would be necessary to allocate funds from the budget this year or next year.
    The NKÚ budget proposal as approved by the committee will now go to the government, which will incorporate it into the draft state budget for next year. By September 30, the government must submit the state budget to the Chamber for discussion, as required by law. The budget committee, according to new rules, approves the budget proposals of six so-called parliamentary chapters already in June, including the budgets of the NKÚ, Chamber of Deputies, Senate, Office of the President of the Republic, Constitutional Court, and Public Defender of Rights.
    In recent years, state institutions such as the Czech Statistical Office have also enjoyed new headquarters. Its employees moved into the building costing 829 million crowns in Prague-Skalka at the beginning of 2004. Four years later, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced its intention to acquire a new building for 1,100 officials, seeking to exchange it for its 13 buildings. However, the government canceled the plan in the summer of 2012. In 2009, the regional court in Brno acquired a new headquarters, with construction costs reaching 1.938 billion crowns instead of the projected 805 million. The former president of the court, Jaromír Pořízek, still faces prosecution for this. The largest judicial complex in the Czech Republic, opened in October 2006 in Na Míčánkách in Prague 10, cost even more, at 2.5 billion crowns.